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A Brief Parish History
Rev Robert Coffin, previously Financial Secretary
for the diocese was consecrated the third Bishop of Southwark on 11 June
1882. He was already aware of the need for a Catholic church in Sutton
and the likely cost of it.
A new parish was mooted and one of Rev Coffin’s
first acts as Bishop was to purchase land on the corner of Carshalton Road
and St Barnabas Road for a total cost of £347. The sale was concluded on
3 October 1882 and a year later a temporary iron church costing a further
£371 was erected on the site. When the church opened between eighty and
ninety people regularly attended Mass.
Old maps of the area give the original dedication
of the church as St Mary, but the Catholic Church on the corner site had
always been dedicated to Our Lady of the Rosary. The confusion arose out
of an odd duality of names. An elementary school for Catholic children
was started in the iron building on 20 October 1890. The church was Our
Lady of the Rosary but the school was known as St Mary’s, yet they shared
the same building.
In 1892 a new and permanent building designed
to meet the functions of both school and church was proposed. The church
comprised the area of what is now the nave and Lady Chapel, cost a total
of £1,187 and was opened on Rosary Sunday 1892 by the Rev Monsignor Patterson
who also preached the sermon.
Plans to enlarge the church came to fruition
in 1912 when a further piece of land at the east end of the church was
purchased for £350. Alterations were completed twenty years later and on
5 October 1932 the Church and High Altar of Our Lady of the Rosary, looking
almost as it does today, was consecrated by Bishop Peter Amigo, Bishop
of Southwark.
(If you would like to read in more detail about our parish, bringing the
story up to our times, you may wish to purchase a copy of “Sutton Catholic
Parish, A History” which is on sale for £3 plus postage and packing. Contact
the Presbytery.)
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